The Talk; Double Vision

By Charles Runnette

Published: March 12, 2006

The Brazilian artists known as Os Gemeos (''the twins'' in Portuguese) are still frantically working on their installation, 24 hours before their debut at Art Basel Miami Beach. They have been painting and hammering for nearly a week. But then, these 31-year-old siblings from S?Paulo are used to working under the gun. Gustavo and Ot?o Pandolfo have spent nearly the last two decades emblazoning the streets of their city with art, usually just a few frenzied steps ahead of the police. This evening, ensconced in the space of the art-world big shot Jeffrey Deitch, they have become legit. And so have their prices -- each canvas is priced at about $20,000.

Ot?o is busy retouching the background on one painting, while Gustavo (the chattier of the two) inspects the enormous boxes that hang from the ceiling and serve as multimedia dioramas. If all goes according to plan, visitors will slip their heads into the wooden boxes and be immersed in alternative realities: one features a painted favela, or slum; another has black-lighted graffiti with some aggressive English mixed in -- ''Welcome to the ghetto, you think you like apartheid.''

Their trippy agitprop -- sort of Dr. Seuss on acid -- has made fans out of an influential bunch, from Barry McGee, the San Francisco-based outsider artist, to Mark Parker, the C.E.O. and president of Nike, to Robert Wilson, the stage director and designer. Wilson, who became a big supporter when the brothers were in residence at his artists' retreat on Long Island, says of their art, ''It's brilliant fun, not only in its vibrant colors but also in the attention to small detail and thought.''

Stepping into their environment, you can start to piece together their influences: American street movies, S?Paulo protest art, Brazilian folk art. And it's the emotional touches that linger: the goldfish swimming inside the Molotov cocktail, the baleful eyes of the young boy peering from behind his mother. As Deitch, who first showed their work at his New York gallery last March, says, ''An art intellectual, an art historian can appreciate their work, but a kid on the street can, too.''

Since their first show in the United States, in San Francisco in 2003, they have been rock-star busy. Not only have they been crisscrossing the world constructing small village houses for Nike parties celebrating Brazil, but they have also had art openings on several continents, painted public pieces for the Olympics in Greece and decorated an entire city train in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The youngest of four children, they still live a few doors down from their childhood home in Cambuci, a working-class neighborhood in S?Paulo, where the super-rich fly around in helicopters to escape thieves and traffic, while the poor eke out an existence in the many favelas. The twins share a house with Ot?o's wife, Nina, who is also an accomplished street artist.

When they finally finish in Miami, they are pleased with the result. They sell all seven paintings, and a conga line of art-world heavyweights stops by to pay its respects. But as you would expect from two men of the street, it is the awe-struck noncelebrities dragging their friends over to the installation who impress them. They appreciate the raw enthusiasm.

Photo: Portrait of the artists The Pandolfo twins -- Otávio, left, and Gustavo -- are making an art-world splash. (Photograph By Tina Tyrell)